Industrial slings are often used to lift and move heavy objects at shipping yards, construction sites, loading areas, and in a wide variety of other applications. While industrial slings were previously made from chains and wire cables, many of today's slings (e.g., those employed in the last two decades) are generally made of tough and durable fibers. These fiber slings can be subject to catastrophic failure if they are cut, subjected to abrasion, or are otherwise worn down. This type of damage can occur when the object being lifted or pulled has a sharp corner or edge, and the sling is held taught against the edge during the lifting or pulling operation or the sling is moved relative to the object as the sling is in contact with the edge.
There are a number of ways the problem of sling degradation and failure has been addressed in the past, such as for example, through the use of eye bolts/hooks or through the use of angular pieces of cardboard or foam that abut against edges of the objects to be moved (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 6,470,637 to Gratz describes molded pulp corner protector to protect windows during shipment). Many of these solutions are costly are relatively inefficient and ineffective.
Another solution is to provide a corner pad such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,744,138 to St. Germain, which is herein incorporated by reference. The pad forms a tunnel between load edge and the pad so that the pad, as well as the underlying sling, is protected from contacting the load edge during lifting or pulling. Similarly, the sling protective pad described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,672,375 to Conrad, which is herein incorporated by reference, includes fasteners on a sleeve forming member which are secured together to encircle and secure the protective pad on an industrial sling at a desired location. Pockets formed in the protective pad house a pair of block spacers which, in one configuration, serve to space the protective pad and underlying sling away from the load which is being lifted or pulled. However, these corner pads are somewhat cumbersome and difficult to properly position.
In addition, the pads currently known in the industry have multiple plies of webbing material such that the plies not in direct with the cutting edge of the load which tend to separate away from the cutting edge of the load, thereby making the inner pads more susceptible to being cut by the edge of the load.
A protective sling that shows one or more improvements in comparison to the prior art would be desirable in the art. In particular, it would be beneficial to have a pad with a cut protection area in which stitching provided across the cut protection area will prevent the inner ply(ies) of the webbing material from separating when exposed to an edge of the load, thereby generating web compression on the inner ply(ies) to increase resistance to cutting.